I’m less concerned with the overt Trumpness of Donald. I am sure that I should be.

Weirdly, the idea that one certain mister ‘pussy grabber’ becomes the President Elect of the United States does not surprise or shock me.

The White House has had its fair share of mysoginists and philanderers – and of course the hawks (both the useful ones the world desperately needed and the assholes the world didn’t). Presidents have not all been shades of the wholesome, family-loving God bless America of Carter and Reagan.

Trump’s direct assaults on minorities, global warming groups, foreign aid, etc. are in no way a surprise. He claims that he is against radical Islam not Muslims, but seems to think beating up Muslims is a great strategy to that end.

And as for the Wall and the Mexican issue. Its teetering on high comedy.

I imagine Trump in the roll of the Norman Knight played by John Cleese in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, looking down from his high vantage on the castle wall.

As the people far below call up to him the Donald flicks his nose at them.

Whispers from off camera: What do they want?

Donald: They’re looking for the American Dream… (sniggers) I told them we already got one.

The cynics point to the fact that Trump can’t be a friend of Hollywood because Hollywood would never forgive him for sending back the people who do their gardens – as every lawn from Sunset to Malibu would scorch and die if it weren’t for the Mexican part time labourers who fill the pick-ups every morning on every principal corner of Sunset where the bus stops sit.

Global warming is cobblers of course in Donaldland (my new name for the Disney-esque NeoCon Hoo Haa place we call the Disunited States of America).

We knew this was coming. His dinner party friends have all made a huge amounts of money from fossil fuels – Oh, and they think the science is cod. How remarkably convenient. Oh and they’d like to continue to make a whole lot of money from fossil fuels. (Apparently the quickest was to roll back environmental impact stuff and fluff is to roll forward one hell of a pipeline.)

And the new hawkish ‘build it up build it out’ approach will be making a whole lot of industrialists in the ordnance sector positively dribble in anticipation. Its like ’64 and Lyndon Johnson’s election all over again.

So shock horror probe.

Donald’s anti the soft lefty red types in the arts. He’s backing the Oil Men, the Military Industrial Complex, the dream of the self-made Millionaire, a two people America and defensive divisive Isolationism.

Damn right.

This is what made America great people. And that’s what Donald is gonna do again.

Look it. Whatta guy. Even his Campaign Officer is a helluva woman – comin’ out fig’tin an e’ry thing at that Inauguration Dinner. Hah.

We’re a hellzaapoppin, asskickin, red slappin’, say it the way it is, speak my mind raise my fists burn some rubber bomb some ragheads give no quarter US of Damn A – an’ don’t you forget it.

There is nothing surprising about Donald Trump at all. He is a very ordinary unsurprising old school alpha man. He is that man in that bar or pub. Foghorn Leghorn. His scrabble for money has given him bragging rights and a loudspeaker for whats right and wrong. And his politics are simply his genetic ‘assert & ascend’ survival strategy writ large and loud.

The greatest issue with Donald Trump is not his politics. It’s his integrity. That fuzzy golden grey periphery that seems to wrap itself around and about everything he touches.

And the minority of ordinary people who voted for him are potentially in for a rude awakening one day. There’s no guarantee he’ll screw it up of course. He may busk it. Survive the next 4 years and fate will smile on him.

It’s a little like functioning alcoholics: teetering on the edge of the abyss of their addiction but never quite falling into it. He may just glide across the bumps. Even more scary for some, there may even be some things that he does that are not necessarily welcome but actually might benefit a large number of people. The issue is can you trust him to do that but not at a punitive cost to others. Favouring one group or bloc or constituency over another is a politician’s remit. But not a President’s.

A substantially larger number of the thinking, living, earning, voting population of the country he runs don’t trust him to run the country in a manner they see fitting for an advanced and great First World bastion of Democracy and Liberalism (and I don’t just mean the fiscal kind).

They do have some fair reason.

A man who does not immediately and absolutely divest his business interests in the interest of running a country is like a man who turns an old pre wedding girlfriend into a post wedding mistress. A weighty dose of cake and Eating it.

A president who does not happily take a transparent line on his business and tax affairs is not to be trusted. This is where I will draw the Silvio Berlusconi parallel. It simply does not work. It leads to or exacerbates existing corruption, self interest runs riot, and toxic back room dealings and trades become the foundation of government decision making. Governments and Presidents do not need any more ‘obfuscation as policy’ – other than that which already exists in the misty foggy worlds of GeoPolitics.

Regardless of whether he is playing games to reduce tax disproportionately or whether it is because Divestment might lead to full and open scrutiny of the financial health and integrity of those businesses – especially the degree of leverage he’s using and the source of that leverage (China anyone?), he is a man who fogs facts and doesn’t finish sentences – an obfuscator of the first order.

Policies are not the issue. Trust is, in regards to both his intentions and his actions.

And to be clear what I mean by ‘half the nation do not Trust Donald’ – I do not mean Trust as in their belief in his ability to undertake and do something he commits to doing. I wholly trust him to keep to his (vague) word and commitments:

“I trust DT to execute a mass of executive orders in his own and associates interest and to his own ends”

I wholly believe he will do that.

The Trust I mean is the one that defines the commitment to an action that is instilled with values and ethics – and of a clear sense of collective and not just selective good:

“I trust DT to set aside this own self-interest in pursuit of creating a better country for both the people who didn’t vote for him as for those who did.

As President, his role is to increase prosperity, and reduce division between the haves and the not haves, and between those for and against him.

Which leads me to venture a thought.

I wonder whether perhaps in our peer to peer world in the absence of a Trust coming down from on high, the new social contract needs to be drawn not between government and the people, but BETWEEN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

Perhaps the new social contract – the contract of TRUST – needs to be drawn up between Trump voters and non Trump Voters. And to each the other is held accountable. Because if Donald is all about acting on the will of the people, then the people’s integrity and mutual trust and vision is everything and he should be in service to that.

Perhaps this is the new model to be forged – enshrined and acted upon in the interests of the American people.

The social contract of TRUST should become a respectful charter for mutuality that transcends party and individual politics:

I trust you to uphold your personal liberties without holding them above mine.

I trust you to raise and protect your family but not at the expense of mine or others

I trust you not to harm our communities in pursuit of making a better one of your own

I trust you to raise your hand in support of those less well off than you, not in suppression of them.

I trust you to protect the freedom of every American citizen, not just those like you.

I trust you to protect our great American wildlife and countryside for our grandchildren

I trust you not to be seduced by words but swayed by actions

I trust you to share equally the Greatness we collectively make.

Just a thought. A new peer to peer Social Contract for the American People.

If we could get both sides to agree that it is the people who Donald serves, and let the people shape the Social Contract that he is action, underwrite and secure using all of the instruments tools and machinery of his elected office, now that would be something.

Who knows: we might even have finally found a meaningful role for Facebook in a declining market.

A peer to peer social contract managed across face book’s 20 Million users – which to be fair even allowing for the teenage user profile and pre voting age bloc is still a hell of a lot closer to representing the future voice and desire of America.

It is certainly more broadly representative of the people of America than the 60% turnout of which Donald still did not secure the majority.

The Cruise industry is projected to launch 21 Million+ passengers on to the Oceans in 2015, delivered by ever-bigger ships with more on-board facilities.

And Royal Caribbean Cruises are leading the trend with the launch of their state-of-the-art 4000+ capacity liner, Quantum Of The Seas.

So no one seems to be struggling to bring the People to the Oceans But is their growth strategy resilient?

Resilience demands that we balance the Opportunity already identified with the Volatility* the category has to manage and absorb over time.

Interestingly the one volatility that seemed to be missing in the conversation is that of the oceans on which cruise companies ply their trade.

And by recent reports, oceanic degradation* is one volatility that offers both the greatest challenge and the freshest opportunity.

Our human wellbeing is inextricably linked to the well-being of the oceans in ways most of us do not realise – why would we? Oceans are ‘out there’ – far beyond our scope of interest – and Ships like Quantum of The Oceans will only go to exacerbate that increasing emotional and rational dislocation.

The bigger the ship; the further away from the sea you’re floating on you become.

But consider for a moment how a simple shift in brand focus:

FROM: Bringing the People to the Ocean

TO: Bringing the Ocean to the People

might offer a fresh source of innovation and differentiation.

Suddenly each ship becomes a floating social network with a bigger purpose – to influence a more sustainable relationship between humanity and the oceans.

Lightness of touch is essential.

There’s nothing quite like a guilty conscience to sour a hard-earned holiday.

Far too many ethical holiday companies forget that the mindset of the average holiday-maker is: ‘I’m going on a holiday, not a crusade’.

So make it fun. Gamify it. Build the oceanic equivalent of Farmville.

And let’s get Google to map the oceans and build a My Drop In The Ocean Pixel Platform while we’re at it – name a pixel of ocean after a loved one.

Who knows: 22 Million Drops could make for a new ocean.

Just a thought.

Deeper notes behind the ‘thought’ below.

* Volatility – a complex interdependent value chain supply chain model manages a number of volatilities – fluctuations & pressures on cost of serving the increasing expectation of experience at decreasing cost – the cost and resource required to managing sustainable fuel sources, innovations, costs and regulation (specifically the low-sulphur emission targets required by 2020) – the increasing pressure of cruise line passenger numbers on destinations infrastructure, environment and socio-cultural dynamics – the impacts of natural disaster and terrorism on general tourism trends and specifically in destination – itineraries shifts.

* The impact of Ocean Acidification, increased acidity caused by run off from ocean side cities and farming and its impact on global warming, sea life and colonies; and the blight of Trash Vortexes – in tandem with over fishing – has bought the condition of the oceans to a point of crisis – so much so that a number of special committees set up to deal directly and specifically with the impacts ad the management of them

The Global Ocean Commission – According to research reviewed by the Commission, this major proportion of the global ocean is under severe and increasing pressure from overfishing, damage to important habitat, climate change and ocean acidification

UN Oceans – In September 2003, the United Nations High-Level Committee on Programmes approved the creation of an Oceans and Coastal Areas Network (subsequently named “UN-Oceans”) to build on SOCA, covering a wide range of issues and composed of the relevant programmes, entities and specialized agencies of the UN system and the secretariats of the relevant international conventions, including the International Seabed Authority and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

NOTE This piece was written in May 2012 as part of an exploration on what might constitute the China Dream on a mega-city scale

Its a nice thought – that just by divine chance, Wang Shu, Tim Burton, The Candy Brothers and the People’s Republic all just happened to bump into each other in a coffee shop, got to talking about mega cities and started to think “what if?

It would be perfect: Wang Shu for balance and exceptional sustainable living design: Tim Burton for sheer Magic, Joy and Wonder: The Candy Brothers for monumental ambition and chutzpah: and the People’s Republic because beyond Social Harmony, in the end the mega city concept is still about people: the best of people and their infinite well being, for generation after generation: not just in the now.

In 21st Taoist terms, people and their energy are the ebb and flow of urban dynamic living – the Qi of the mega-city.

Which means the mega-city in its infinite wisdom must be designed and conceptualized around human-sized principles as well as eco and sustainable ones, constructed in such a way as to knit back together the strands of the fabric of society to create more than simple cohesion and structural support. To atomise and empty the rural constituencies requires making quite deep ruptures and rips in the cultural psyche. These need to be either healed or resealed depending on whether you see this as an emotional or rational task first and foremost

This is about Tan de Bing versus Harmony, Balance & Respect.

With 1 Billion Chinese people expected in urban mega-cities by 2025, how one maintains Harmony Balance & Respect in a way that is both enjoyable and sustainable will become increasingly critical to the national and global well being.

Fossil fuel consumption increasing by 3-6 Billion life years per year with a ten-fold increase in solid waste this becomes a matter of human logistics on an extraordinary scale.

But perhaps just starting by thinking of what it means to be human in a mega-city is a good place to start.

Scale is something that seems to be driven by the most interested party and developers tend to favour scale of ambition over scale of inhabitant too often – particularly demonstrated in the burgeoning mega-cities of the Middle Eastern Sovereign States.

Human Scale

So let’s start perhaps from the small wonder of a human being – and those inextricably linked to that human being, family, friends, community, and those that serve them both professionally and domestically, and the services that surround them, the environments they exist within, and how everything from educational philosophy and medical wellbeing to civic planning needs to be calibrated in the daily flow of urban infrastructure. Obvious yes, but especially critical given the broader societal cultural, industrial and commercial shifts and undercurrents rippling through the nation and how it is perceived both internally and externally.

There are cities where a human scale still survives and becomes the defining aspect of those cities, whether by simple history and divine chronology – the existence of smaller more human-sized historic building scattered amongst the high rises. The City Of London for example, like many European cities enjoy this aspect of modern urban living.

In a recent New Yorker piece by Evan Osnos, Li Huang the guide showing a group of mainland Chinese travellers ‘Europe’ pointed out the ‘open-ness of the city’ to them while standing on the banks of the Seine. “In Shanghai unless you’re standing right next to the Huangpu River you can’t get any sense of the river because there are too many tall buildings” adding that Europeans “preserve anything old and valuable.”

Even in the US the streets of some US cities like San Francisco and Boston old tradition and historic residences, churches, parks, thoroughfares and in Boston’s case the very halls of the Founding Fathers continue to set human dimensions on the aspirations of the high rise living that surround them.

Also, cities like London have seen the rise in the social and cultural importance of what were the old villages that once circled it. Highgate & Hampstead, Notting Hill & Kensington, Clapham, Dulwich, Blackheath are islands of human-sized buildings, spaces and thoroughfares critical in maintaining the balance between a city’s architecturally progressive and its inexorably human self especially given that they are now fixed firmly inside the UK city’s own version of Tan De Bing – its urban into suburban sprawl.

One could argue that mandating that 30 percent of buildings in any given area of a new mega-city can be no taller than three stories and have as much open space around them as they take up in square meterage would be a good start. Or that perhaps they should be planned with some human sized historic or non commercial building (whether it be a single barn, a temple or a whole village) at its centre, kept as a living spiritual compass for the rest of the city.

Continuing in the 21st Century Confucian theme perhaps a pond-ripple concept might also help keep things human. If there were a central building: small, low rise (tasked with an active social role beyond being just thematic or symbolic – a community centre and well being clinic perhaps) with open space around it and the development of housing and retail spaces rippling away from its centre, only climbing to the higher and larger scales of buildng at the outer edges, until they overlap other ripples of development.

TRANSPARENCY

The ability to see through things: spaces, areas and buildings to what is beyond is to my mind critical in the health of a city. Not everything must be wide open but enough to make openness and transparency a signature of better living.

Removing civic opacity to me must be both physical as well as spiritual and political.

The Cities of the future could place this very important ‘Balance’ characteristic at its conceptual core – as a form of ‘letting go’ – of removing the visual and physical barriers that are historically used to close and control communities, spaces, people, lives processes and systems.

Protection in regards to the state institutions has shifted from the more intimate communal protective vigilance of long ago to the more paternal protectionist big brother model – perhaps the mega-cities of the future can start with the one small step on the greater journey to rebalancing this trend.

LUNGS & ARTERIES

Enabling people to feel masters of the environment through scale is one aspect of a healthier urban environment. The other is open and communal spaces in general, though I would stress a preference for planning that weaves green organic and flourishing habitat into the fabric of the infrastructure planning and not just as spaces set aside for leisure time enjoyment; for example as ways of humanizing commuter routes.

This is more than just a lung concept – these would be truly arterial in that they are oxygenating the traveller along otherwise urban landscapes. As opposed to arterial being a plain descriptor of the role, quality and flow of the traffic in motion along them. To ‘line’ every road, rail and bike route with flourishing flora of ay sort – to turn them into a landscaped or farmed artery would make for ‘breathing spaces’ in otherwise quite congested high stress channels of flow through the city. These arteries can also provide areas for the human hand to be seen at work. The still hands of the old might be usefully engaged in planting these arteries, creating shifts and washes of different colours and textures, small strips of pride – the tools and seedlings provided by a hands off civic centre. If one were to create a grid one could assign the East West facing strips as allotments and urban farm strips, the organic and intimately tended criss-crossing the urban metropolitan landscape. One could even for example create a simple trading relationship between the owners/leases of these and small retail grocery interests around the city to develop a 1 Mile Produce Promise for the people buying the produce.

One Person One Life

The ‘one human’ concept – of people being the same person inside work as they are outside instead of having to become schizophrenic – is helped enormously when you ‘open cast’ their working community alongside the everyday domestic and public flow of life.

Physically knitting the fabrics of the business/commercial retail, domestic elderly and young communities of one city together like this is critical to health and communal well- being. A true constituency of extant human beings sharing space and fuelling hope and small wonders on an everyday basis.

(NOTE: there is also an inbuilt innovation trigger in this style of interwoven and proximal living as it has a far greater likelihood of driving direct and indirect general idea sharing and creative collisions, making it far more likely for like and eclectic minded individuals t find each other).

This openly interconnected physical formula of: flow x people x experience x action ÷ space drives heightened degrees of mutual respect; of the others right to existence and enjoyment and equally, might also substantially reduce isolation of particular groups which ascendant modernizing societies have a tendency to leave behind in their whirlwind of achievement and pursuit of even greater individual success, e.g. the elderly and young mothers. Creating working spaces where people travel along or up and down through domestic, retail or public spaces from office to office or from one corner of a business floor to another creates a far healthier attitude and less ‘ shutting away of the worker bees’ – a system proven to ultimately fail by creating social and communal division and isolation with net negative impacts on mental health and potential alcoholism and other domestic issues demonstrated inside people’s lives away from the public eye.

There are also financial possibilities to be considered here in regards to investors in development of these cities: I use the particular example of the Pension Fund standing at ¥1.9Trillion with a track record of low yield investments, lack of transparency in regards to management, low or empty regional pension pots and little impetus to change.

If we were to stitch the elderly back into the infrastructure of the mega-cities, not just by building more residential care homes but by investing their pensions in the very infrastructure of the cities that serve them, this may point to a more accountable and directly applicable financial deployment model of the pension funds that currently enjoy some arcane management at best. If we were able to combine the financial interests and burdens of the polar ends of society by stitching them into the structure and flow of these new eco mega-cities perhaps it also reapplies a 21st Century version of Confucian harmony.

This is not just some retrograde cod philosophical posturing: a sop to the old wisdoms. We know for a fact from some of the most mature Liberal Democratic Capitalist countries that no good comes of isolating your elderly into the margins. The soft wisdoms and life learning that comes with them equally disappears with them. The disappearance of these balancing perspectives and small wisdoms break down family cohesion, dumbing down the Emotional Intellect of the family and communities they exist within in by removing the direct effect of their life skills and experience: a removal of balance from the natural social order of things.

Deploying the power of old people back into society as some form of spiritual triage would also remove the tendency for young people to increasingly spend too much time reinventing the wheel in regards to life skills – taking time to discover some life experience that they might have otherwise picked up through sheer social osmosis ultimately takes the young person’s mind away from greater and newer discoveries perhaps.

And finally, old people sitting and watching the world go by being placed in close proximity to the crèches of their grandchildren not only brings the pleasure of young people to bear around them by reinstates the communities kind eyes and watchful carer class

Stitching Well-Being Into Everyday

City living isolates most people ‘away from’ the kinds of small incidental processes of health and well-being that would otherwise do them and their productivity enormous good. ‘Small and often’ in regards to visiting and exploring best-health and well-being practice ultimately pays the individual and the society they live in great dividends – they feel secure and supported, part of a substantial social contract of care, and equally in turn feel less distracted by abstract concerns and better focused on the matters in hand – extant beings working and being in a productive thriving life and society.

So, as an extension of the One Life One Person strategy it would make sense to begin building medical and well-being galleries populated by ‘walk in clinics into this open-cast approach to living working leisure spaces – equally it promotes and builds into the every day psyche a convenience strategy of well-being – critical in a city where people become isolated in their workday from the smallest medical or well being services or considerations.

The Devil’s in the Retail detail.

That every new eco mega city will have a burgeoning and vibrant retail economy goes without saying. It will be a cornerstone of the ebb and flow of life, existence and people’s broad concept of their prosperity. The fact and detail of how the retail experience: and the brands and the businesses that design and deliver them stitch themselves into the urban society both physically and spiritually will be where the innovation and the harmonious concept development should come.

Most of the traditional retailers and manufacturers are constructed for an American style of manufacture, distribution, format and consumption. In the modern China this model has become simply untenable. Not only are the American models require a staggering use of fossil, material and human resource to maintain themselves, they are also based upon on a Sub-urban mart and mall model that will not necessarily fit the design sensibility and spatial economy of the new mega cities – they also create cluster and volume formats in which the consumer is guided through a vast arena of offers and multiple purchase deals suited more to the vast double fridge households of the Midwest than the spiritually and physically ergonomic concept of Chinese living.

How retailers adapt to what the Chinese model of consumption will become, as opposed to just pointing at the version of it that currently exists – a cod-American gated villa ranch and lodge style of living that still holds up the SUV double fridge ‘I am therefore I consume’ model as a demonstration of personal meaning – this will be the defining factor in which brands and businesses win.

How the scale retail players deconstruct themselves into these mega-cities – delivering surprise and a more human sized and manageable set of offerings – offers an interesting challenge. Can they still create aircraft hangar sized triple floor temples to their wares and life style signature? Or will they need to sub divide their offerings into boutiques of need, day part and purchase scale scattered throughout the urban landscape? Or will they need to deploy a little of both?

Potentially, bringing in some of these retail and manufacturer partner players at a planning stage while they are still subservient to the greater good, and tasked with stitching themselves sustainably into the future habitat as opposed to helicoptering in and simply ‘planting monoliths to their brand dream where they fancy may be the smartest beginning to that journey

Back to The Future

There has been much talk of a return to the cultural roots of the Chinese – a return to the culture and environment that have shaped this phenomenal culture over the millennia. In returning to this space, and in reconnecting with their roots, there is in essence a trigger for the 21st Century ascendency of new Confucian or Taoist ideals at work across and throughout society.

Pure urbanity is imbalanced in its perspectives and its energies. It must have the organic rural expanse of ‘Other’ to be truly balanced and powerful.

Though some might see this as a cynical cultural play to make every one more personally responsible for their lives and to take them away from the state-orchestrated feel good dependency of old, there is a lot to be said for how we might build this into the vision of the new Chinese eco-mega-city.

If one applies the filter of ‘Perceptions of Prosperity’ over the question of how we reconcile cultural tourism and the rise of the eco megacity, we should simply look at how the most mature western liberal democracies view ‘having it all’. It would reveal that one of the final steps to the peak of prosperous living and being is the one that takes you into ‘a rural retreat’ – having a place in the country – a cottage, house, farm or barn. It is seen as the ultimate pressure valve for the modern sophisticated urban player – an escape to something purer and simpler; connected back to the land and the hands that formed it. For many it is vicarious – many do not actually engage in the ‘hands-on crafts and tending of their property and the land that surrounds it’ even though it has been proven that undertaking these pursuits leads to a greater sense of fulfillment and superior mental health. They’re simply buying ‘the idea’ of it. But to actually rebuild the bridge back to the rural culture of China could be of enormous social value in regards to a rediscovered and sustained sense of self – though some large negative perceptions and behaviours might need to be accounted for and changed first of all.

To some experts this idea of a return to ‘doing things with one’s hands ‘ – artisan and manual labour; craft works and hobbying’ sits at the peak of the Struggling, Surviving, Thriving, Being pyramid – as a supreme demonstration of ‘Being’, as opposed to near the bottom just above ‘Surviving’.

Given the recent emergent journey up and away from poorer rural roots of many of the new emerging Chinese middle classes, this would probably seem nonsensical or counter-intuitive – just going backwards. But as has been born out in the western liberal democracies with quite sophisticated social models and concepts of prosperity and success, if one replaces the material striving and existence framework with one predicated on a ‘pursuit of sustainable well- being, balance and harmony’, a new world is revealed. It becomes part of the rupture repair strategy.

In many mature societies, especially those that have moved the furthest away from their original rural agricultural roots post the industrial revolution, it has been proven that hobbies, jobs and professions where ones manual actions are directly linked to having an effect in the physical world – an structural creation or improvement, a communal good, the creation of or maintenance of a personal chattel or machine, an improvement to the immediate landscape or environment – offer exceptional health giving properties and are a source of improved mental well-being and ultimately have a positive effect on people’s perceived sense of personal happiness.

In fact even in the more structured undertaking of civic politics and citizenship, the ability to act on something, directly attributing cause and effect to the person undertaking the action has been proven as a direct producer of ‘happiness’ – as born out in the Swiss cantons that rated highest in one of the global Happiness surveys – their ‘happiness’ rating seemingly attributed to each civic individual’s ability to vote in such a way as to have direct and tangible effect on the quality and progress of their own life and that of the community around them.

So, though I am NOT suggesting that every one need return to their roots and start taking up pot turning and weaving, I do feel that building a supporting environment or infrastructure into the city plan that allows people to ‘reconnect’ with the primal humanities contained in this ‘belonging’ in nature and environment is a good thing – and to that end a halo of eco lodges around as city as an inextricable part of the enjoyment of that city would make supreme sense.

If this outlying landscape was populated by eco-lodges that created an urban escape – one of many different shades – developed as an integral part of a sustainable more balanced living strategy – an inextricable aspect of the urban ebb and flow, maintained by the city as a part of the infrastructure, that would truly be cohesive planning at work. To create a ring fence of rural Eco lodges that any and every inhabitant of those cities could go and use, to escape and reconnect with the old rural cultures just for even a short while would be an amazing embrace of what we know know to be a silent truth about pursuit of happiness – and it would be far closer to the burgeoning 21sts Century Confucian ideal of Social harmony that the central party espouses.

One could also build into the city infrastructure a collection of what could best be referred to as ‘Barn Raisings’ (as a reference to the scene in the movie ‘Witness’ where the Amish community are shown ‘coming together’ to build a barn for a farmer as an exercise of community, brotherhood and social benevolence) – opportunities for communities to come together to put together, arrange, enjoy, expand, build or create something of direct value and enjoyment or utility to them – they could be used as social cohesion projects – one in every neighbourhood – large, communal ways of introducing and stitching together people who may have been drawn together from distant and disparate places

Big Ideas & Small Wonders

One particular thing that we have witnessed as a fall out from the recessions that have struck the western democracies recently is the transient and fluid nature of commercial real estate on the high street as well as in industrial areas. I focus on the high streets though as they have the most social and communal traction and impact on the broader sense of well-being and as to whether a community is thriving or not.

Many high streets now have many shops that have been without a fixed proprietor for some years – the shops changing hands or being passed on either as a matter of short lettings or as what have become know here as pop up shops. Over the last 6-8 years these have gone from being very vogue and ‘fashionable’ – a bit edgy and anarchic – to being quite regular spaces of energy and fresh drama on otherwise quite stagnant high streets.

So what if we chose to fix these dynamic moving feasts of retail joy into the new infrastructure of the new eco megacity? What if we set aside a street of small shops and spaces, ready to trade, with fluid transactional soft and hardware built into each that each resident trader can be registered to use for the period of time that they are there.

What is we created a space populated by a wondrous fluid shifting sand of different small scale boutique cottage industries – of designers, tradespeople, artisans, local hobbyists, in fact anyone with a small volume of materials or products or wares that they wish to exhibit and sell. All you would have to do is register and take your slot. The simple fundamental idea of creating small islands and markets of maker crafts culture and innovations scattered through out the city that are open to any citizen who wishes to try their arm at being entrepreneurial would be a wonderful human sized way of breaking the homogenized tendencies of large urban living centres and creating a new quiet revolution in innovative thinking – but in such a way that it is the civic society that is enabling its own to act upon their skills talents and whims in a way that is productive and positive for everyone from the neighbourhood to the city as a whole.

Digital Glue

The life-changing role of social networks and digital enablement in humanizing cities of an ever-grander scale is critical and absolute. Every eco mega-city must be enabled for people to connect immediately and anywhere. This lies beyond putting up cafes and hot spots and creating the odd social network movement.

This is about the degree to which people can live out their digital lives enabled by the metropolis in which they live – as opposed to relying on the brands and businesses that populate that city to do it for them.

It is also to do with creating the platforms on which they can have their say and act directly on municipal and civic issues, questions and challenges that affect their daily lives. Social Networks that create, stimulate and elevate a ‘listening’ and ‘acting upon’ culture are critical to engaged and communal environments flourishing and becoming self- sustaining.

That there should be an Open Innovation platform for every city yet to be planned and constructed; an open innovation platform focused on attracting, engaging innovative minds with potential solutions on everything from hi and clean tech and industrial innovation both radical and incremental to social programmes, care initiatives, and community ventures is critical given the scale and the different need states that need to be designed for.

The Open Innovation platform would be not only to harvest the best of local and national thinking and doing but also to create a high profile platform upon which to invite and build relationships with the private sector, where they might tender and where tranches of action and responsibility for the investment and involvement of the private sector in the infrastructure of the new city are presented in an open and transparent manner.

The possibilities that digital sharing living thinking and doing might bring to every aspect of a megacity’s potential both social and structural are only just beginning to be explored and embraced. Watch this space.

Take A Different Path. & Look Up

One last thought in this top note is about things I have noticed over many years, while spending a lot of time in various cities. One of the ways in which to create social cohesion and engagement is to compel people to perhaps step out of the rigid conformity of their routine – how they journey through the city in which they live and work.

People fix themselves into commutes that are particular and for the most part forensic demonstrations of getting from A to B. Most urban inhabitants have developed a hypersensitive modus that they apply to every journey..

This tends to lead eventually to a heads-down approach to city living much in the vein of the old New Yorker adage of Look Down Keep Moving. Although this extreme developed from the time where the streets of New York were a lot less friendly than their post zero-tolerance selves and avoiding people’s gaze just in case was always a good thing, there is a universal truth in that people existing under the auspices of urban pressure cooker living do tend eventually to just put their heads down and get on.

But this creates a downward spiritual pressure on the individual – as they move into ever greater and more reductive processes and spaces of being and action. It creates an urban claustrophobia that is hard to shake and ultimately joyless.

I would contend that one of the greatest challenges to the social health of any eco megacity will be the city’s ability to mitigate or almost eradicate this urban trait – by using their rare opportunity to create as many ways as possible to stop it developing in the first place.

One suggestion if that we develop a travel and transport infrastructure that allows people to ‘take a different path’ to the same destination – getting some different perspectives and taking in different surroundings on the way. Developing an arterial system that combines pedestrian, bus, tram, monorail, cycle, scooter and car ways in such a way as to allow commuters even at their most time critical to take a different route would create breathing space in the urban ebb and flow – a far greater sense of balance and an opening out of personal perspectives.

I also believe that in creating the opportunity to gently raise people or enabling people to raise themselves out of a sometimes crushing routine helps them to connect and engage with people they might not otherwise have meet or with experiences they might not otherwise ever enjoy – and that is about the earlier point of making transparency and openness an integral ‘living’ part of the city.

If one wants to see this demonstrated first hand get street level in a city where the normal infrastructure of travel is ruptured, stunted, closed, redirected or unsettled by either weather, a national or local event or industrial action. Initially it is just a city full of exasperated individuals everywhere – anxiety and annoyance are rife. This is simply the immediate emotional reaction to enforced change, the frustration of having no choice in the matter of having to change your routine.

But once the rupture has set in, after a few days, the choice issue dissipates, and you start to see an underlying ‘lift’ in people, small moments or camaraderie, and people beginning to enjoy different aspects and attributes of a city they otherwise would never see.

Imagine if we could build that choice – and the citizens ability to do that – into the everyday travel infrastructure of a city – the ability to ‘take a different path’ and ‘look up’. That would be truly amazing.

Deep Breath

And perhaps in all of these things we could see an eco megacity built upon ore than exceptional carbon modeling, energy use, waste management, sustainable building materials, utility lifecycle planning and infrastructure efficiencies.

We would have a very singular and particular one built to house the new vision of Chinese prosperity – inclusive, interwoven, built around an exceptional ebb and flow of human energy, new dreams built upon old wisdoms, upon urban and rural integration, generations reconnected for everything China is yet to be and yet to do.

NOTE: China Dream is an initiative designed to reshape a more enduring and resilient concept of prosperity. Developed by Peggy Liu founder of JUCCCE, an NGO, the China Dream is committed to changing the path of Chinese consumption and living for good.